London Days 3 & 4

First of all, congrats to all my IB friends on their amazing results:)

Now I'll continue with the London posts.
Read Day 0, 1 here
Read Day 2 here

Day 3
We headed to Portobello market in the morning. It's massively crowded - a river of people streaming in from everywhere and constantly flowing forward.

This was probably my favourite market. Shopkeepers peddled a vast array of antique wares - from silverware to tin boxes to furniture to vinyl to books, cameras, jewellery, and a host of other things.

Several shopkeepers were selling antique books, some of which looked very lovely, which I was tempted to buy. I restrained myself though, firstly because they were far too expensive, secondly because I'm the sort of booklover who likes my books in mint, near to brand-new condition, and I knew that the yellowed pages that seemed to blend so well with the flavour of the market would be far less appreciated among my other books back home. Instead, I bought a wooden box that looks like an antique book from another store.

Mum got a Wedgewood box from an old couple who was planning to sell their things and go to Miami till the British winter was over.

For lunch, Aunty LK treated us to a meal at Goodman's Steak House.

Tiger prawn tempura, avocado, mango & Cajun mayonnaise

Pan fried foie gras, roasted fig, oyster mushroom, truffle honey

This was glorious.

Grilled halibut steak, buttered cabbage, pearl onions, saffron potatoes & wild mushrooms

Grilled lobster tail with garlic butter

Steak

Truffle chips & mushrooms with garlic butter

After lunch, we headed to Camden market. 

Apparently it's notorious for particularly bad pickpocketing, so be extra vigilant there. 

It's sort of like a British Bugis - a maze of shops with many different lanes to turn into, filled with the usual t-shirt shops, shoes, accessories, scarfs, etc. It's not as cheap as Bugis though, but I think it's supposed to be cheap for London cos there were a few hangers that said £2 or £5 which I'd have jumped at if they were in Singapore dollars.

In one t-shirt shop, Mum was discussing whether or not to buy something with me in Mandarin and then the British shopkeeper suddenly said 有问题吗? (Is there a problem?) in practically perfect Chinese.  We were pretty surprised. It turns out she'd decided to learn Mandarin on her own for fun, and when she found out we were from Singapore, she smiled and said she'd always wanted to go there, to which I said, "It's terribly hot," and to which she replied, "That's the point."

It got dark pretty soon and there was supposed to be a sort-of Christmas market nearby so we decided to check it out, only we realised that it was more of an extension of the main market and they'd simply put a few fairy lights around. Shops sold similar things. 

Mum had the SUKA ball to attend so we had to leave early (though the sky looked like 8pm anyway) We took the tube back home and while Mum and Aunty LK went to the ball, I babysat Ethan and helped him with his school craft project.

Day 4

It was a Sunday so we headed to Holy Trinity Swiss Cottage for church. They were having a Christmas service and kids acted out a modern nativity play with 3 wise men becoming 3 surfer dudes and the shepherds becoming construction workers and King Harod becoming the British PM. At the end of the service, the children went round in a circle carrying Christingles.

Then Uncle Bernard and Aunty Jane treated us to a dimsum lunch that tasted very much like Singapore dimsum (and so I have decided that London Chinese food is still decent at least. And terrible Chinese food experiences in Austria do not account for the whole of Europe.)

We headed to Westfields for the rest of the day.